<p>Just out of curiosity, since Bush is white and obviously wasnt helped by affirmative action, did he get in b/c of grades and whatnot or alumni legacy or something like that?</p>
<p>mega-legacy, plus he went to a feeder school (andover). after finishing yale with a C average, he was hosed by the in-state u. of texas law school, but harvard business took him anyway.</p>
<p>gotta love the ivy league</p>
<p>Grandfather on the board? That probably helped the most.</p>
<p>What about Kerry? He had a slightly lower average than Bush at Yale from what I've read. What was his hook?</p>
<p>He's a Kennedy. His SATs were actually lower than Bushes, but he also had money backing him.</p>
<p>He's not a Kennedy...?</p>
<p>Kerry had a wealthy aunt backing him, if I recall. He also did the private-boarding-school circuit.</p>
<p>he was dating a kennedy while in college, hence the famous picture of him sailing with JFK (off cape cod I think)</p>
<p>When Bush and Kerry were admitted, schools like Yale weren't getting thousands of applications from all over the country, and none at all from women.
Money was also very important as the financial aid programs weren't what they are now. It was an old-boys wasp network at most of the ivies. Much has changed since 1969, but much is still the same.</p>
<p>Kerry was a legacy at Yale, like Bush, just as Gore and Kennedy were legacies at Harvard.</p>
<p>Kerry seems like a success to me (from Wikipedia):</p>
<p>"In his sophomore year, Kerry became president of the Yale Political Union. His involvement with the Political Union gave him an opportunity to be involved with important issues of the day, such as the civil rights movement and Kennedy's New Frontier program. He was also inducted into the secretive Skull and Bones Society. President George W. Bush was inducted two years later.</p>
<p>Under the guidance of the speaking coach and history professor Rollin Osterweis, Kerry won many debates against other college students from across the nation. In March 1965, as the Vietnam War escalated, he won the Ten Eyck prize as the best orator in the junior class for a speech that was critical of U.S. foreign policy. In the speech he said, "It is the specter of Western imperialism that causes more fear among Africans and Asians than communism, and thus it is self-defeating." [5]</p>
<p>Over four years, Kerry maintained a 76 grade average and received an 81 average in his senior year.[6] Kerry, even then a capable speaker, was chosen to give the class oration at graduation. His speech was a broad criticism of American foreign policy, including the Vietnam War, in which he would soon participate."</p>
<p>What is a "76 average" .... a straight "C"? Halfway between a "C" and a "C+"?</p>
<p>Haha, indeed. Neither Kerry nor Bush holds much of a claim to being an intellectual leviathan, the former sporting a 76 average and the latter a 77.</p>
<p>It often doesn't come through grades, gallo_pallatino.</p>
<p>Did you watch the debates, perchance?</p>
<p>That's fine and well. Kerry was - and is - a good speaker, no doubt and politically active as well, all of which speak favorably about him, and I wouldn't contest that point.</p>
<p>But to claim in any way that Kerry was an intellectual powerhouse (or that he dwarfed G.W.Bush in this respect) at Yale is somewhat misrepresentative also, which is what I noted in my previous post. </p>
<p>I really have no significant political inclinations myself, but I dislike the idea of people basing opinions on reputation without taking at least a glance at the facts.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
It often doesn't come through grades, gallo_pallatino.</p>
<p>Did you watch the debates, perchance?
[/QUOTE]
Apparently not through SAT scores either.</p>
<p>And frankly, I thought Kerry might have been the more capable speaker, but I agreed more with Bush's points. So, from my point of view, the debates proved nothing.</p>